Tuesday, 2 October 2012

If closer monitoring of home education in New Zealand and the USA does no good, why would we need it in this country?

In recent days two linked objections have been raised to the proposition that new legislation is needed in this country to regulate home education. The first is that increasing or decreasing monitoring in two other countries does not seem to affect the outcomes for home education there; the second that there is no evidence that there is anything wrong with the current arrangements in this country and that consequently there is no need for any new law. I want today to examine the first of these ideas, that it is possible and worthwhile to compare home education in this country with that in New Zealand and America. I strongly suspect that those making this claim know as well as I do why it is impossible to compare home education in this country with either New Zealand or the United States, but working on the assumption that there will be readers who do not understand the difficulties, I shall try briefly to outline the problem.

Let us begin by looking at the most recent investigation into motives for home education in the United Kingdom. This was conducted in Wales, but there is no reason to suppose that the findings are not also applicable to England. The full report may be found here:

What was discovered about the motives for home education? The report says:

Broadly, from the responses gathered at this stage, the motivations of the Home Educating community can be seen to fall into four categories on a spectrum and, in this description, in no order of percentage choice. 1. Response to behavioural /attendance issuesThe extreme stance expressed by some authorities that the majority of HE parents choose HE to avoid prosecution when they and/or their children simply disengage with education is not endorsed by this initial scoping, but it is the primary experience of the EWS in relation to HE and, as such, is perceived to be a much more significant motivation than it is in actuality.

2. Lifestyle choicesAt the other end of the spectrum, the political position of some home educators is that the family unit and not the state has primary responsibility for the education of the child and therefore that education is most suitably and efficiently delivered in the family context. Other ‘alternative’ lifestyle choices include those of the traveller communities, or various religious perspectives.3. Curricular/structural issuesBetween these two poles are children and families opting out of the mainstream, not to disengage from education, but after struggling with, and giving up on, the curriculum or structural difficulties of school life, be it the size, the length of day or the interaction with some teachers.

4. Special social, emotional, health or learning needsTowards the choice of HE as a lifestyle are those opting out of the mainstream because of social, emotional or other learning challenges, delicate health issues, difficulties with transition, or, most particularly, the experience of bullying. This appears to be the largest group in the spectrum. Many of these, though originally choosing reactively away from school, do seem to find HE particularly suitable to meeting, or allowing for, those particular needs and come to embrace this alternative educational experience as a proactive and positive decision.

Lest anybody object that this research was carried out by those opposed to home education and accordingly biased against the practice, let us recall that Paula Rothermel found pretty much the same thing when she surveyed British home educators. The main motives that she found were things such as, ‘having a close family relationship and being together’.

Now I find all this pretty astounding. I was sure that I could provide my daughter with a better education than she would receive at school and it therefore made sense from a purely educational perspective not to send her to school. Such people as me are mentioned in the list of motives, but one does not get the impression that they are a majority or even a significant proportion. I have an idea, which is borne out by what little research has been conducted in this country, that very few parents in Britain home educate for purely educational motives of this sort. Research by both Paula Rothermel and Education Otherwise confirms this. When Education Otherwise sent out two and a half thousand questionairres, the main reasons that were given for home education were bullying and lifestyle. Education per se did not seem to be a big factor in the decision to home educate.

In America, the situation is very different. The largest piece of research carried out there into the motives for home education, that carried out by The National Centre for Education Statistics in America, showed that 50% of those asked about their motives gave as the answer, ‘Can give child a better education at home’. This indicates that the commonest motives for home education in America are very different from those in this country. There, parents tend to choose the practice because they believe that they can provide a better academic education. In the UK, it is at best a lifestyle choice relating to wanting to be close to the children and at worst, a reaction to problems at school. In other words, British parents are not in general choosing home education for educational reasons.

It must be fairly clear that if, as tends more commonly to be the case, American home educators are primarily concerned with good academic education, then their children are likely to be achieving highly; regardless of whether or not they are being checked by the authorities. To try and compare this situation with that in this country is pointless. Most parents here are either forced into a position where they feel they have no choice in the matter or wish to keep their children at home as part of a lifestyle choice. This means that we are not able to draw any useful conclusions by the American experience of monitoring and regulation. Unless somebody is able to come up with evidence that home educating parents in New Zealand are very similar in their motivations to those in this country, we may probably disregard what has happened there as well. All of which means that when considering new legislation, we would be well advised to restrict ourselves to thinking about what is happening in this country and not trying to rope in America and New Zealand.

What is happening in this country and what does the evidence suggest? I shall be looking at this in the next few days.

33 comments:

Simon wrote:'Now I find all this pretty astounding. I was sure that I could provide my daughter with a better education than she would receive at school and it therefore made sense from a purely educational perspective not to send her to school.'

I agree with you (for a change). I wonder if there is a cultural element in play here: British modesty/lack of confidence/unwillingness to claim to be superior in any way, particularly to a state group such as teachers. I'm not suggesting that this applies in all cases, but perhaps it suppresses the number or respondents who would dare to make such a claim.

Another possibility is that British schools are particularly bad (or at least perceived to be so) in addressing other, non-educational issues such as bullying, SEN etc.

Some or all of these may be factors in deciding to HE, and perhaps it seems polite to omit the "arrogant" claim of better education, which might incur some finger-wagging wrath - and not merely from the state. Relatives, friends, other parents can also be judgmental in this respect. You and I might not have a problem handling this, but I suspect that's not always the case - even if it is a valid claim.

Come to think of it (replying to myself), even I tend to pussy-foot around the reasons for HE when first asked by a stranger; they might be a teacher or have a close friend or relative who is one, and it's not nice to attack them (which I would not do, but that's not how it's perceived). Only in the event of persistent resistance do I ruthlessly beat them into the ground with the education argument, and I rarely have to go that far.

As I'm sure you are aware, Simon, differences in sub-population proportions within a study population should be born in mind when assessing evidence and making comparisons, but it rarely means that the evidence must be disregarded completely.

However, I would dispute that the populations are as different as you suggest. For instance, 'Homeschooling in the United States: 2003. Statistical Analysis Report' (Princiotta, Daniel; Bielick, Stacey) found that the primary reason for homeschooling in the US was 'Concern about environment of other schools', which includes safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure. 31.2% (341,000 responses) citing it as their primary reason, the next most popular reason being dissatisfaction with academic instruction in schools was quite far behind at 16.5%. Eighty-five percent of homeschooled students (that's 935,000 responses) were being homeschooled, at least in part, because of their parents’ concern about the environment of other schools.

Whoops, sorry, 'to provide religious or moral instruction' was the second reason with 29.8% of the study population citing it as their main reason (not dissatisfaction with academic instruction in schools). 72.3% cite it as one of their reasons for home schooling compared to 85.4% citing concern about the environment of schools as one of their reasons.

It is titled, 'initial scoping research', so maybe it's intended as preparation for a larger study or as a starting point to further discussions. But social research involving in depth interviews or questionnaires attempting to discover conflicts and reasons for choices are invariably small scale because of time and money constraints.

BTW, although only 23 interviews were conducted another 17 questionnaires were returned, so there were 40 responses in all.

But I agree that the numbers involved make statistical analysis about things such as home educator motives dodgy. This type of study is more suited to understanding relationships and the interactions between different groups in order to discover issues, which was the intention, after all.

'I know what the study's purpose was. I wasn't criticising the study. I was expressing surprise at how it was being used in this blog post'

Part of my purpose in using the Welsh study was to demonstrate the paucity of reliable information available on the subject. There is enough to indicate that the situation here is probably different from that in the USA, but precious little beyond that. The other point which has been raised several times by people commenting here is that we need solid evidence before we can say that there is need for a new law. I intend to post about this soon, showing how the search for evidence abut home education in this country is often frustrated by home educating parents themselves. Posting about the Welsh survey was part of the preliminary process. Have a look at what is said about the attempts to discourage participants and you will get some idea of what I propose to look at next.

I am not. I am saying that I do not believe that 72% of home educating parents in this country would cite religious or moral instruction as a reason for their choice. Or at least, they have not done so when asked in previous research in the United Kingdom. A far commoner reason is bullying, which hardly features in the American statistics. I do not think either that around 25% of the children of American home educators have special educational needs, as some surverys in this country indicate. What I am saying is that the situation in America is so different as to make it unwise to draw to many firm conclusions from comparison.

" In the UK, it is at best a lifestyle choice relating to wanting to be close to the children and at worst, a reaction to problems at school."

Why, at worst? When I removed my child from school because of bullying it was for a complex mixture of reasons and an important reason was education. They were learning very little at school because they were too stressed to learn. We could have stayed and given the school longer to sort it out, but then my child would have fallen even further behind and it would have been cruel to leave them in such a situation anyway. A child being bullied at home is cause for social services involvement, but at school it's brushed under the carpet.

' Interviews were conducted with the parents of 11,994 students ages 5 through 17 with a grade equivalent of kindergarten through 12th grade. Of these students, 239 were homeschooled. The NHES is designed to collect data on a wide range of educational indicators and types of students, including, but not limited to, homeschooling. Therefore, readers should note that the number of questions asked of homeschoolers and the number of homeschoolers represent only a small portion of the NHES collection'

Ahh, my error, sorry. I looked at the tables without realising that these are weighted estimates based on the sample you describe. However, they did find that 31% gave their main reason for home schooling as concern about the environment of other schools and 85% said that it was one of their reasons, so although the proportions may vary a little, the same issues exist in both countries. Certainly they is not enough different to justify ignoring their research completely.

I think this illustrates the kind of vacuous substitute for logic inference that appears in so many of Simon's arguments:

1) Monitoring doesn't appear to be beneficial in New Zealand or the U.S.

2) An unscientific collection of a very small number of anecdotes from a small area of Wales hints at a difference in the reasons given for home educating between Wales, New Zealand and the U.S.

3) Ergo (with his usual fluff and obfuscation to give an impression of being a reasonable old cove), monitoring will work here and we should legislate to ensure all home education follows the Webb method and any deviants are sent to school.

We can expect an anguished howl of response, possibly dressed up in something calm but snide (or maybe nothing at all). Nevertheless, that summarises his position.

'1) Monitoring doesn't appear to be beneficial in New Zealand or the U.S.'

I did not say this at all, merely that it is impossible to compare the situation in America and New Zealand with this country. Others commenting here have said that monitoring is not beneficial and I have taken their word that this is so and worked from that premise. I expressed no opinion as to whether it is really the case.

'An unscientific collection of a very small number of anecdotes from a small area of Wales hints at a difference in the reasons given for home educating between Wales, New Zealand and the U.S.'

I seem to recall mentioning in the original post not only the small Welsh sample which touched upon motives for home education, but also larger surveys conducted by home educators themselves, which came up with similar findings. Let's see now. Ah, here we are:

'let us recall that Paula Rothermel found pretty much the same thing when she surveyed British home educators. The main motives that she found were things such as, ‘having a close family relationship and being together’... Research by both Paula Rothermel and Education Otherwise confirms this. When Education Otherwise sent out two and a half thousand questionairres, the main reasons that were given for home education were bullying and lifestyle. Education per se did not seem to be a big factor in the decision to home educate.'

That is over seven and a half thousand questionaires in total. Rather more than the two hundred and thirty nine cases in the American research cited above!

'we should legislate to ensure all home education follows the Webb method and any deviants are sent to school.'

My views on the mass instruction of children in schools are too well-known to need repeating here. I have no desire to see any child sent to school. I have no idea where the idea came from that I am a supporter of schools and wish children to be sent to them!

"The main motives that she found were things such as, ‘having a close family relationship and being together’... Research by both Paula Rothermel and Education Otherwise confirms this."

The trouble is you are not comparing like with like, different questions were asked. Were English home educators even asked about moral reaons, for instance. For us, having a closer family life is intrinsically tied in with morality.

Damn, I forgot to howl in an anguished fashion! Is there perhaps an emoticon which I might use to indicate anguished howling?

Incidentally, readers might care to observe that I have been perfectly agreeable during the debate above. It is when I ask an awkward question that others begin to become abusive. Earlier in the thread, it was claimed that a survey had been undertaken of a million home educated children. In fact, the real figure was two hundred and thirty nine. As soon as I pointed this out; the unpleasantness begins; 'vacuous...snide..fluff... obfuscation...deviants...anguished'

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that when facts start to intrude into the debate, some of those commenting here resort to abuse!

I apologise to one Anonymous and condemn another. If only there was some way of distingusihing between different people so that we didn't get muddled up in this way! Oh, wait a minute; there is! They are called names and make everything so much less confusing.

Simon said,"It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that when facts start to intrude into the debate, some of those commenting here resort to abuse!"

Getting back to the facts then:

Simon said, "I do not think either that around 25% of the children of American home educators have special educational needs, as some surverys in this country indicate."

The 2003 study you mentions states that 15.9% of home schooled children had physical or mental health problems and 28.9% had other special needs.

You claimed that the populations are too different for US study conclusions to transfer to the UK, but the 2003 US study found that 31% gave their main reason for home schooling as 'concern about the environment of other schools' and 85% said that it was one of their reasons, so although the proportions may vary a little, similar reasons for HE are given (were UK home educators asked about moral reasons?). Certainly they do not appear to be different enough to justify ignoring their research completely.

Ah, I am afraid that you are not taking into account the wonderful natural tendency toward self-effacement of the Welsh. I cannot imagine any Welsh parent saying that they were sending their children to a particular school, or keeping them at home, in order to set them aside from their peers with a better education. Wales is my adopted country; I am a Londoner by birth and I cannot tell you how different (and better, I feel) the Welsh way is. It would be nearly as bad as boasting which is something else we never do.

Also regarding the reasons given to keep children out of school. While certainly, family bonds are important to very many of us, that does not preclude our children getting a good education in the slightest, in fact it is because my children and family are so important to me that I make sure they have what I consider to be a good education. (in our case a fairly traditional, academically rigorous, classical/scientific education, but to others of course a good education would be more in the line of self-reliance skills and arty things and so on-we're all different, of course). I would have ticked the box for strong family bonds or what have you as my reason for home educating, but for us, as for many, this translates into making sure that our children are prepared for the fairly academically-inclined, bookish life that I suspect, based on knowing them very well, will make them happiest.

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